"For the Love of God, Don't Found a Hope or Expectation on the Family Curse!"
I did it. I finally finished "Bleak House." It took me the better part of three months, and involved a sheet of paper covered in notes just so I could keep track of all the characters and their plotlines, but I finally got there in the end. A tangle of intrigues and mysteries, a scathing indictment of the time's corrupt legal system, and a massive cast of characters (just when you think Dickens can't possibly add another character to his already-extensive cast, he goes and introduces ten more) all make "Bleak House" a tough, but ultimately rewarding read.
This was one of the earliest examples of detective fiction; primarily because it includes a murder and a whodunit aspect, but also in regards to how the plethora of characters and plots add up together into a cohesive whole. The protagonist Esther Summerson has a mysterious past and is of unknown parentage (when raised by her aunt she is told: "your mother is your disgrace, and you were hers"), whilst other characters are veritably shrouded in mystery from beginning to end of the novel - it is probably more convenient to ask what character *doesn't* have a secret to hide. When removed from her unloving childhood and taken to Bleak House, Esther gradually blossoms under the love that she finds there, though there is always an ominous shadow of secrecy lingering over her.
The Court of Chancery forms the backbone of the novel, specifically the Jarndyce versus Jarndyce lawsuit, a sprawling legal case that has stretched on for years with no end on the horizon. It's gotten to the stage where no one can even understand or remember what it involves. Based on the contemporary situation, wherein several Chancery cases had indeed stretched on for over twenty years, drinking up time and money as they slugged on, this is the source around which all the cast of characters revolve, each one inextricably bound to it to one degree or another.
Just as London is concealed in the dense fog that opens the novel, so too are the interwoven destinies of the people wound up in the Jarndyce versus Jarndyce case. Seemingly unrelated at first, all the subplots and characters eventually coalesce and add up to a singular plot. In previous books, much eye-rolling was induced at Dickens' use of coincidence, as various characters are brought together by fairly long stretches of logic and happenstance. Here however, the technique works simply because such interconnectedness is precisely the *point* of the narrative, and not just a device.
The novel flits back and forth between first-person narrative by Esther Summerson and an omnipresent narrator. A lesser writer couldn't pull off this sort of thing, but in Dickens' hands the technique works brilliantly in heightening the tension between the two worlds; allowing us the comparison between the intimacy of Esther's discussion and the opaque storyteller that keeps things at a distance, tricks us into jump to the wrong conclusions, and surprises us with solutions that - though sometimes anticlimactic - are still oddly fitting in terms of their thematic strength.
Dickens has a bad track record when writing women, preferring to portray them as the Victorian ideal of "the angel of the house," rather than three-dimensional figures, but although Esther does initially come across as the typical domestic goddess, she is eventually revealed as a surprisingly fascinating narrator. Although she constantly deigns to speak about herself, often mentions her own shortcomings as a storyteller and apologizes for the necessity for making herself the centerpiece of her own tale, her narration is often contradictory, secretive and never hesitates to recount flattering compliments that other characters pay her. There is an amusing sense of false modesty about the work, a self-awareness (on Dickens behalf, rather than Esther's) that writing about oneself is always more fascinating than one might be willing to admit. And yet in spite of the sense of personal gratification in writing her life's story, Esther often holds back her innermost thoughts and feelings.
To be honest, she reminded me a little of Shakespeare's Viola of "Twelfth Night" in her astonishing passivity to just let life's current take her where it will, even with ample opportunities for her to be proactive, work toward her goals in life, and uncover the mystery of her past. But nope, she's perfectly happy (or is she?) to devote herself to the service of those around her, so achingly grateful for their love and affection that she willingly throws herself on them to the point where there's nothing left for her to do but gush excessively about how wonderful they are. Dickens is hard-pressed to make this interesting for, as always, the paragons of virtue are never - and *can* never - be as interesting as those that roam the periphery of the main story. Compared to the unfathomable Tulkinghorn (described as an oyster that no one can open), and the furious Smallweed (carried about in a chair that he slips down into every time a bout of temper gets the better of him) and the cold, languorous, mysterious Lady Deadlock, the likes of Ada Clare and Allan Woodcourt seem impossibly bland and insipid. As Terry Eagleton says in his preface: "In a society for which goodness has come to mean thrift, prudence, meekness, self-denial and sexual propriety, the devil is bound to have all the best tunes".
One thing that often goes unmentioned in various review of Dickens is just how funny he can be; even though here the humour is in a somewhat disparaging tone that reflects the general mood you'd expect from a book with the word "bleak" in the title. But one of my favourite characters is the harried figure of Mr Jellyby, married to a woman who cares nothing anything past her "mission". As a result, Mr Jellyby has taken to simply sitting in a corner, as Esther notes: "he sat down on the stairs with his head against the wall. I hope he found some consolation in walls. I almost think he did." Later, on visiting Jellyby's young married daughter, Esther is told that he often visits their household: "looking at the corner, I could plainly perceive the mark of Mr Jellyby's head against the wall."
As with every novel, Dickens' social commentary comes out loud and clear, and here it is mainly on his critique of law and justice, but also the linked side-issues of child abuse and misdirected philanthropy (Mrs Jellyby is obsessed with the welfare of Africa, to the detriment of her own children and in ignorance of the poverty right outside her doorstep). Yet it is the Court of Chancery which gets the biggest pen-lashing here, as Dickens satirizes its lawyers as cannibals and eventually has characters die from its influence: one from the exhaustion and despair that it strains on his mind and body, the other from nothing less than spontaneous combustion at the raging complexity and confusion that it causes. In a novel that has no singular, corporeal villain it is the court itself that serves as a force of destruction. Seemingly possessing a life a life of their own, humans are simply cogs in the machine; cogs who cannot even understand the situation properly. There is no enemy here: just a system of their own creation that people cannot fight let alone hope to win against. They can only endure until it burns itself out.
With that in mind, I'd say the prominent theme in my understanding and experience of the text is that of survival. Perhaps this is only because of the extensive time it took me to get through "Bleak House", but to me, this is a story of simple survival - not against any particularly dangerous odds, but against fatigue of the spirit, isolation, heartbreak and monotony - to endure and survive such things and keep plodding on regardless of the circumstances. And yet there is more to it than that, otherwise the situation would be too hopeless: as the characters struggle on, they are also on the search for love, whether it be that of a mother for her child, a man for a woman, or a person for their purpose in life.
Work of a wizzard
This is my very first Dickens book, and now I can really understand his place in the history of English literature. This book is phenomenal in every possible way. It is satirical about the rigid power and class of the British aristocracy, the incompetent legal system and government. The characters represent personifications of the wide range of social values, exploitation, juxtaposed to unchanging moral compass, love, loyalty, sacrifice and human decency. It is very interesting to have two narrative perspectives, and it is done seamlessly and with incredible mastery. The predominant motif of fog provides great visual setting of the story and the choice of the name, "Deadlock" is a brilliant one as well. I find the character developement of the two leading female characters and their love relationships very intriguing and wonderfully surprising in the end. What a joy to read a book like this!
"She's a Bleak House", or "the British Seinfeld"
"She's a Bleak House" (to the tune of the R & B hit "Brick House") popped into my head as I was reading this book. I was also reminded of "Seinfeld" when I read, on p. 217 of this edition: Dickens description of the legal case at the core of "Bleak House as "such a disturbance about nothing particular", which describes the action in this book much like a British version of the show famously about nothing. While as overbuilt as the "Brick House" of the song, Bleak House is also often enough about nothing to knock it down to four stars.
This one of Dickens "classics" doesn't quite rate so in my estimation due to the multiplicity of characters and the multiplication of words. Frankly, here at the peak of his fame and writing career Dickens needed an editor, but no one could stand in editorship over the Inimitable.
So he wrote on and on, 818 pages in the paperback "Bantam Classic" edition I read. Characters are introduced and detailed, then dropped for hundreds of pages; would the luster of the novel have been materially diminished had the weight been materially reduced by excising the story line of Caddy Jellyby and the Turveydrops? Caddy Jelleyby exists primarily to allow Dickens to lampoon her mother's over-earnest championing of foreign missionary efforts at the expense of ignoring her domestic duties. I get it, and contemporary readers got it and talked much about at the time it was serially published but it adds nothing but weight to the novel today.
Dickens' other primary target in the book, of course, is the labyrinthine legal system in the England of his day. The plot loosely follows the progress of Jarndyce and Jarndyce through the courts and the impact the starts and delays and fitful progress of the case upon its participants, observers, and lawyers. Dickens uses this backdrop for several comic and tragic set pieces.
Among the main characters are some of the most endearing Dickens' creations: practically perfect Esther Summerson, her heroic Guardian (one of the Jarndyces in the suit who has washed his hands of the mess), Jo the homeless boy who is tragically and comically entangled in the web of conflict between the sinking upper class and striving middle class which Dickens' adroitly depicts, and Mr. Bucket "of the Detective", whom Dickens uses to draw together and resolve the threads of the plot, and who points the way to countless other literary detectives to come (screenwriters for the old "Columbo" TV series obviously studied at the school of Bucket).
The effect is an overstuffed couch of a book--comfortable but lumpy. Judicious editing could have made it a classic--smoother on the back and easier on the eyes.
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